


A Distorted Portrait of Gerry Keay

by Pinkandglitterdinosaur



Series: Chromatic Fear God and Its Goth Boyfriend [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Canon-Typical The Spiral Content (The Magnus Archives), Gerard Keay needs a hug, If You Squint - Freeform, It/Its Pronouns For Michael | The Distortion (The Magnus Archives), Leitner Books (The Magnus Archives), M/M, Mary Keay's A+ Parenting, Mentioned Gertrude Robinson, Mentioned Jurgen Leitner, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Canon, Spiral-Typical Nonsense, Suicidal Ideation, gerard keay is not a book yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:06:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27020188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pinkandglitterdinosaur/pseuds/Pinkandglitterdinosaur
Summary: I sat on the edge of the motel bed, eyes closed, smoking a cigarette, when the sound of the day started up. That day, it was a high pitched static, the kind an old TV makes when you turn it on. Most days it was some form of static, but occasionally I would be stuck with an arrhythmic popping. Other days I would be stuck hearing what I could only describe as the color yellow.It was about two in the morning when I woke up from a thirty something hour nap and checked my phone to catch up on what I’d missed. Only, I hadn’t missed anything. I had no missed calls, no unread messages, no new emails, and no more leads on the case. And so I took the moment to appeal to my unprofessional side and smoke a cig.In the not-so-silent motel, I wasn’t expecting any peace. When I put out my cigarette, though, everything was quiet. There was no shouting or banging in the walls, no cars on the street outside, and the static was gone. The last part was the single most concerning bit.
Relationships: Gerard Keay & Michael Shelley, Gerard Keay & Michael | The Distortion, Gerard Keay/Michael Shelley, Gerard Keay/Michael | The Distortion
Series: Chromatic Fear God and Its Goth Boyfriend [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1983946
Comments: 17
Kudos: 66





	1. Preface

**Author's Note:**

> Content Warnings in the end notes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warnings in the end note.

The headaches were a constant in my life now, perhaps one of the only constants I’d known in a very long time. Sometimes I would wake up with no vision in my left eye and the taste of mangos in my mouth, other times I would see floating lights in the corner of my vision as soon as I stood up. But none of that scared me anymore.

I hadn’t spent very long working with Gertrude before I really took notice of what was happening in my mind. Originally, I brushed it off and chalked it all up to the pressure and side effects of the job. Deep down, I knew that none of the Leitner books I had encountered would have side effects of this sort, but I wasn’t ready to believe that something so painfully normal could kill me.

I couldn’t go to a doctor, not that I’d be able to afford one. But I had read the journals and articles and watched the documentaries and googled the symptoms enough times to crack a guess at what was wrong. It wasn’t a Leitner or some fuck-all fear god. It was normal. It was average. It was so human, so mortal, so scientifically explainable that I honest to whatever god exists wanted to burst out laughing whenever I thought about it. If things kept going in the direction they’re going in, I won’t be dying as food for a carnivorous book or a plaything of It-Is-Not-What-It-Is, I will die collapsed in a heap after a stroke or an aneurysm. 

I wasn’t entirely sure which fate I preferred. I escaped Mary Keay and ran the lines between Entities for years, only to die in such an offensively boring piece of shit unavoidable situation. I couldn’t fight it, I couldn’t bargain it off, and I couldn’t kill it without killing myself.

So I did the sensible thing and ignored it, actively keeping it secret from Gertrude, and continued hunting artifacts like nothing was wrong.

And really, nothing had changed. All that happened was that I was made aware of an already imminent situation. The cancer was already underway long before the headaches began.

.

I sat on the edge of the motel bed, eyes closed, smoking a cigarette, when the sound of the day started up. That day, it was a high pitched static, the kind an old TV makes when you turn it on. Most days it was some form of static, but occasionally I would be stuck with an arrhythmic popping. Other days I would be stuck hearing what I could only describe as the color yellow.

It was about two in the morning when I woke up from a thirty something hour nap and checked my phone to catch up on what I’d missed. Only, I hadn’t missed anything. I had no missed calls, no unread messages, no new emails, and no more leads on the case. And so I took the moment to appeal to my unprofessional side and smoke a cig.

In the not-so-silent motel, I wasn’t expecting any peace. When I put out my cigarette, though, everything was quiet. There was no shouting or banging in the walls, no cars on the street outside, and the static was gone. The last part was the single most concerning bit.

I immediately stood up and armed myself with the switchblade from the nightstand, scanning every inch of the room from my spot.

“Who is it?” I called, as if answering the door. What entity would benefit from taking away my headache, or furthermore, what entity would benefit from my anxiety regarding its absence? I struggled to keep a clear head. 

.

“Aren’t I supposed to knock first?” a voice laughed. A door creaked open on the wall that shouldn’t have a door. It was bright yellow and it sure as hell hadn’t been there before. But there was a face inside that doorway. “You’ve gone and ruined the joke and we haven’t even started yet!”

This face smiled a little too far, had eyes a little too bright, and hair a little too flowy. The face wasn’t human, and it was noticeable but only just.

“That doesn’t answer the question,” I replied. I knew exactly what it was. I had read the statements about this one, about its door that shouldn’t exist and its hallways that don’t make sense. This thing that is not what it is, the Spiraling madness, deception incarnate. It called itself Michael.

“What is a question but an answer?” it pondered, still only peeking out from behind its door. Still grinning far too wide.

“That makes no sense and you know it. Now shut the door and leave.” So long as I didn’t enter its hallways, it couldn’t digest me fully and I still had a chance to escape.

“Are you sure?” it asked, amused. “When I leave, the ringing will come back.”

“So you admit it’s you,” I muttered, mostly to myself.

“I never denied it.” Michael’s laugh was wrong. At its base, it sounded like a laugh, but it echoed roughly in my head, threatening to make its way back out forcefully through my ears or my nose. It sounded like a laugh, but only just enough.

“I haven’t dealt with any artifacts pertaining to the Spiral,” I snapped. “I haven’t in at least a year, so you can leave now.” And again, it laughed. But this time it was moving out from behind the door.

It looked too tall, ducking to avoid hitting its head on the doorway. And by god, I was not expecting it to be wearing the eighties in all its neon glory. The sweater it wore had an ever-changing lava lamp pattern and its pants were bright green, which quite frankly matched nothing. Its hair, Jesus was that a perm, was blond and long enough to reach its knees.

“But why?” it pouted. “I only just got here.”

“I know I can’t kill you but I can sure make you fucking hurt,” I growled, bracing to lunge for my duffel bag. It was part way between Micheal and myself, but I didn’t want to risk going at it with only a switchblade.

“I was trying to be friendly but you are going to act so inhospitable, I’ll just go.” It huffed and stepped backward into its hallway.

“Then go!” I yelled. It made a show of flipping me the bird before finally shutting its door behind it.

The moment the door shut, my head came crashing back into me. The sound was back (had it always been so loud?), my migraine was back full force, and my sense of smell dissipated. I hadn’t even noticed that I had lost it. When had I stopped smelling things? I squinted, looking around to make sure the door hadn’t just moved to another wall. The color of the carpet tasted like piss.

I sighed and carefully sat back down on the mattress, head in my hands. If this experience taught me anything, it served as a point in letting me know how long I had left. I had hoped that I was exaggerating how fast it was progressing, but the revelation that I lost my sense of smell, who knows how long ago, really brought the situation into perspective.

It was time to decide how I wanted to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains; strong language, descriptions of symptoms relating to brain cancer, suicidal ideation


	2. And So Ended Gerard Keay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What makes me so interesting that you feel the need to keep an eye on me?” I grumbled to the garish yellow door. “Also, cheers to this idea. Replacing my own goddamn bathroom door. Actually rather clever but I need to piss, so either my door comes back or I mark yours like a dog.”
> 
> “You could use my bathroom,” a voice echoed from nowhere at all. “It is down the hall and to the left.”
> 
> Absolutely fucking not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See end notes for content warnings. And congrats to anyone who can name all the pop culture references I made.

“What makes me so interesting that you feel the need to keep an eye on me?” I grumbled to the garish yellow door. “Also, cheers to this idea. Replacing my own goddamn bathroom door. Actually rather clever but I need to piss, so either _my_ door comes back or I mark yours like a dog.”

“You could use my bathroom,” a voice echoed from nowhere at all. “It is down the hall and to the left.”

Absolutely fucking not. “In case you can’t see, I am currently unzipping my fly,” I stated, doing just that. I had barely even finished talking before my ears popped violently enough to prompt a couple curses, and the yellow door was gone, replaced by my own white one. I mumbled a quick thanks out of habit and went about my business. Only, something was wrong.

“You goddamn motherfucking sack of dicks,” I shouted. “Why in the whole fucking world is my piss motherfucking blue?” This, apparently, prompted that familiar nails-on-a-chalkboard laugh I heard so often.

“I thought you couldn’t see colors anymore, Book Burner.” Michael purred from behind the shower curtain, turning said curtain tie-dye where it touched it. I quickly finished up and yanked back the curtain, half expecting to find nothing there. It was an unpleasant surprise to see it had taken a corporeal form. It looked me straight in the eye, so far as I could tell what with its face vibrating on a different frequency than my own.

“You have blood coming from your ears, dear,” it crooned in an approximation of something soft, but Michael doesn’t do soft. I wiped it away with my sleeves.

“If you’re so worried, maybe you shouldn’t have pulled your door out of existence so fast.” I reached past him to turn the shower on, but the water started pooling on the ceiling above it.

“Apologies,” it replied. “My door is a part of my hallways is a part of me, Book Burner, and I don’t do _watersports_.” I turned off the water and glanced back to see what could have passed for a grimace. I pulled the curtain back to hide it and left.

“I’m going to make coffee,” I said. “Do you drink coffee or do you want my neighbor’s chihuahua instead?” I opened the fridge to see that Michael was looking back at me from behind the produce.

“Are you really offering to feed something the likes of me?” it asked. I popped open the creamer to find that it was far more red than I remembered. Last time, it was a writhing black void. I shrugged and closed the fridge.

“My mother may have been a psychopath fear-cultist but she did teach me manners. When someone enters your home, you feed em.” To my delight, this brought me a full minute, at least, of quiet. I would have thought it had left, but I could still smell the coffee brewing on the countertop.

“You,” it started, sounding very small, and perhaps from the direction of the air conditioner vents. “Called me… a someone.”

In the absence of an answer to whether it could even drink coffee, I poured two mugs.

“I… do not like being a someone.”

“Apologies,” I sighed, thankful that it hadn’t simply left. I had missed smelling and tasting coffee. “I will avoid calling you a someone in the future.”

  
  
“Time isn’t real,” I heard, muttered from somewhere in my living room.

“In that case, do you want creamer?”

“Would you want to drink the cultured and processed mammary product of a large domesticated bovine ungulate?”

“Wow, big words. No creamer, then.” I carried the two mugs into the living room, where Michael was sitting on the back of the couch. I handed it the mug of black coffee. “Please don’t ruin my cup. The last one exploded in the microwave after you used it.”

It laughed and carefully held the mug like it was something priceless. I sat down on the coffee table, not willing to share a couch with it, and sipped from my own mug. The coffee was cheap, and far too hot, but I was willing to savor anything I could these days. I found myself closing my eyes and just breathing it in. When I opened them again, Michael was looking at me curiously.

“If you came through my door, you could live the rest of your life with your senses intact,” it whispered, echoing between my ears. I gripped my mug tightly and resisted the urge to spill my coffee all over it.

“Yeah, sure,” I said sweetly. “But only because you would start digesting me as soon as I crossed the threshold. What I don’t entirely understand is how much work you are putting into this. Why don’t you just compel me to walk through it? Drive me to madness until I forget to check the color of the door?”

It looked down into its mug. “At least I can offer you an end without pain. It’s far more than what I was given, and it’s far more than what you’ll get without me.” Bits of its hair were flittering in and out of existence as it stirred its coffee with a too-long finger.

“Every time a someone trusts That Archivist, they are turned into a something. Be it a mangled corpse or a new addition to her so-called Artifact Storage, the someones will always become somethings when placed in her hands.” Michael still stared into its cup as it stirred. “I offer you the chance to die a someone, instead.”

I stood and walked to the kitchen where I poured out the contents of my cup down the sink and subsequently smashed the mug on the tile below my feet.

“I don’t know if you noticed, but I already have a plan for that,” I yelled at it. “I will either die in a hospital or I will die in this apartment and there will be no negotiating! I have cancelled my plans and finished all my current cases and tied up all my loose ends because if I am lucky I will die in my sleep. And I swear to god, if you are the last thing I see, I will take you with me and that death will not be painless, I promise you.”

I turned back into my bedroom and fumbled through my chest of drawers for my handgun.

“And Michael?” I called. “If I walk back out there and see that either you or your door is still in my plane of existence I will shoot myself in the stomach. That, my friend, is a very painful way to die. Now I don’t even pretend to understand your motivations here but I will take a wild guess and say that you don’t want me to die like that.” As soon as I had it loaded, my hands were shaking for some reason, I stomped back into the living room with the barrel of the gun against my stomach.

I didn’t need to look around to see that it had left. My left eye was dead and my mouth tasted like grass and graphite. I let out a shaky breath and cried.

.

The Book Burner smelled like Death. He always smelled like Death, and the smell only ever got stronger. He removed the batteries from the clocks in his house when the seizures started. He only had a few violent ones, but they all left gaps in time all the same. I couldn’t begin to comprehend the emotions he felt when presented with a life no longer tied to something as fragile as time after being controlled by it for so long.

Existing as something non-existent had consequences both good and bad. I exist everywhere and in every time, and nowhere and never. Connecting to the part of myself, when I have a self, that used to be Michael and is no longer him is painful. It is so very painful to remember being us instead of me.

But I find that I often gaze back at The Assistant Named Michael Shelley, regardless of the pain, because the piece of humanity he retained and I obtained from him as he was unmade and remade was a difficult and stubborn thing. Fickle emotions. They bind me to space and time like I had not been before I was Michael. My hallways exist and do not exist as they always have, but no longer can they do so simultaneously. I cannot see and feel every street corner, every solitary room and cell, every person on and within them. I am forced to choose. I am forced to choose who and what to see and when.

But I find that I cannot wish to not be him like I had not been him before I was him. Once, when Michael was not me, before he entered my hallways in the midst of The Great Spiralling, I did not find amusement in the realities and unrealities I traversed. I watched without interest, and fed the hallways without joy.

Now that we are me, I see a person Spiral into madness and find happiness and amusement in their suffering. I play games and find myself entertained by these fragile someones. I put in effort to stretch out the game and savor those little bursts of anxiety as they wonder if they’ve gone mad. I like this. I enjoy this.

I do not enjoy the smell of Death on my Book Burner. It is not something that I like. He used to smell like destruction and careful recklessness, tinged with the smell of someone who can See. Now, he does not. The smell of his Death is pungent and overpowers the scent of the coffee he has given me. I want to tell him that this smell upsets me, that I want the smell to go away so that I might enjoy the chaos of his life like I had before. But telling the truth, a truth with no illusions and delusions, is not easy for a creature of lies.

I tell him that I want him to die quickly, and this is not what I wanted to say. This upsets him. Why does this upset him? I am upset. Why are both of us upset? How can both a thing and a person feel the same kind of upset? He tells me to leave, and I do.

He is crying. He is crying. Does he feel sad? Is he crying in pain? Does his Death hurt him so much when I am gone that he sobs? I used to be able to smell his emotions, but now I cannot.

I want to be sure, and this obstruction of truth does not feel good like it should. I want to come back and exist so that he is not in pain, because I want to know why he cries. I want to exist but he still holds an instrument of Slaughter and End, so I stay gone.

“My Book Burner,” I tell him, while he pretends to sleep. “I am not a creature of wants.” This is untrue. I want many things at many times. He pulls his blankets closer and I speak quieter. “But I want for you to stop hurting.” This is true. It is true and sincere and it hurts to say.

He sighs. “Why don’t you ever use my name, Michael?” This question is unexpected. He sounds exhausted. Does he ever sleep anymore?

“Names have power,” I say. “I would not want to take power that has not been given to me.” I feel like this is true.

“My very own personal faerie,” he chuckles sadly. Why is he sad? Did I make him sad? “A strange being who tempts humans through its door to another realm. What kind of power would I be giving you if I told you to use my name?”

I do not know. “It is hard to explain when I am existing,” I say instead. It is partly true. It is also complete bullshit.

“I’m dying anyway,” he said. “I don’t have anything to lose anymore.” He still does not look at me. Why isn’t he looking at me? I tone down my fuzz in case that is why, but I know that it will not help. “Don’t call me weird names anymore. I’ve always wanted my friends to call me Gerry.”

I ask if I am his friend, I think. I like his response. It makes me feel good, but confused. I am alright with that.

“Well, yeah. Of fucking course you’re my friend.” He says words that should be said in a happy voice, but his voice is low and sad. “Honestly, what did you think you were? I would make a joke about how we are practically married but I don’t really want to hear you talk about how marriage is an illusion or some shit.”

“Everything is an illusion, Gerry.” This makes him laugh, but I don’t like this laugh. It feels wrong, like I know my own does. He sits up in bed to look at me and I see anger in his face. Why is he angry? Did I anger him?

He is not smiling, he is baring his teeth like an animal would. His eyes are red and the dark circles under his eyes are blue. He threw out all his makeup last week.

“Why is it that I only ever have a clear mind when you’re here, huh?” I am confused. The thing he says should be good but he says it like an accusation. Why does it anger him? “A thing that literally feeds on the insanity of the people around it, and it gives me peace of mind when it’s near. It’s backwards, Michael! And what do you gain from it?”

I gain nothing from it.

“I know you know that I will never enter your hallways, so why do you keep coming around?” He is crying. Is this why his eyes are red? Why does he cry when he is angry?

“I want you to not hurt.” This is true. “When I am here, your head calms until I leave.” This is true and I am wincing from the pain. What do his eyes see when I wince? He is sobbing and his hands cover his face and tangle in his hair. It is a shade of green where it is not blond, it used to be black.

He is talking, but I can’t understand him. I don’t think he means for me to hear him anyway. I feel unwelcome, but I don’t leave because I don’t want him to hurt. I wish he could be not in pain when I do not exist. I wonder if I am capable of crying. I hope I am not.

“I want to tell you things,” I say, when his sobs turn quiet. “I want to say what I think. It is… difficult.” I hope he understands.

“I want to die already,” he whispers. His voice is hoarse. He sniffs and looks at me. “You can stay. The clarity in my head is just an illusion, right? All my symptoms are still here, I just can’t feel them.” I nod. I want to thank him but I don’t. He wipes his face with his blanket.

I don’t know what to do. Does he want me in the room even? Does he want my presence or just its benefits? Should I sit somewhere? Does he want me to speak?

“Hey, could you get me some water?” he asks, but then quickly clarifies. “Water from the tap, in a glass that I already own, from the cupboard, with nothing in it except for the water.” He is smiling. Is he teasing me? Am I okay with the prospect of being teased? Would it matter if he wasn’t Gerry?

I laugh and he flinches a little, but he continues to smile. He still smells like Death.

.

Oliver Banks, a man who exists almost as little as me. His unlife is so closely tied to his patron that I would not dare touch him in fear of destroying my hallways. After all, Death comes so easily to him.

“Coroner,” I greet him. He is sitting on a park bench, feeding the ducks. He does not acknowledge me. “I have come to bargain.”

“Did you know that ducks can’t digest bread?” he asks me. Or maybe he isn’t even talking to me at all. He throws a handful of small green spheres into the pond. “Ducks, and all other birds for that matter, are gluten intolerant. Bread can actually permanently damage their intestines if they eat it too often.”

I look around at the ducks he is feeding and notice that there are plenty of pigeons surrounding him as well, all feasting on the little green things.

“My Book Burner feeds your Inevitable,” I say. “I do not want him to.”

“You don’t smile anymore, Michael,” Banks says back. “Everyone and everything falls into the hands of the Inevitable. It’s only natural.” Banks smells like Death. He does not smell like the Dying or the Dead, like over-sweetened tea. He smells like the kind of someone who would drink that tea, like dust and freshly-cut grass. “Everyone and everything, except you and me.”

“I find it poetic,” he continues. “That you will never truly succumb to the End and yet you feed it constantly, Michael. You are a feast all by yourself.”

I want to tell him that I do not have a self.

“You provide more power than Gerard Keay does, now.” Oliver Banks stands and the birds do not mind. He does not look at me. “I may serve the Power you seek to bargain with, but not even something like me can prevent the Inevitable from taking what will always fall into its hands in the end.”

I follow him out of the park, watching how the grass is greener under his feet and the flowers are healthier when he passes by. I follow him down the street while he occasionally stops to hand a few pounds to a homeless person regardless of whether they ask for it or not.

“I do not want him to live forever,” I tell him. “I only want to change the circumstance, Coroner. I do not have much to bargain for it with but I am sure that I possess something.”

“You do not,” Banks states. “You have nothing to offer. All of your chips were forfeit the moment Michael entered the Great Spiralling. There is nothing left of your humanity that is desired by the Inevitable, other than your fear.”

I do not bother to say goodbye, and I am gone. I am angry. Why am I angry? I have not felt like this in a very long time, since we watched Gertrude Robinson sail away from Sannikova without so much as a tear on her face.

My hallways quiver and growl, echoing through my infinite, fractalling labyrinth. The people trapped inside shake in fear of the noises the walls are making. “Have I taken a wrong turn?” they ask themselves. Every turn is a wrong turn inside the hallways, and deep down they know this. But acknowledging this fact is admitting defeat.

.

Michael was standing in the corner of my bedroom like some cursed internet photo, staring and unblinking. It made me wonder if it blinked usually.

“Michael, you’re being creepy as fuck,” I said, in the midst of brushing my teeth. It made a vague noise but didn’t move. I rinsed and spit specifically so that I could stare it down. “The fuck are you doing.”

“Existing,” it said, completely serious. I raised an eyebrow and it did the same, I think.

“Why don’t you sit somewhere and stop staring at me,” I suggested. “I am going to get some sleep but I can’t do that if you’re staring at me.” I avoided looking in the mirror and grabbed a few hair ties on my way back to bed, which was now occupied. Michael was indeed sitting down, cross-legged in the center of my bed, though it had yet to cease watching me.

“I’m willing to share but dude,” I sighed, fighting a smile. “You can’t just hog the entire bed like that.” It looked down at the blankets and seemed to consider this, then sort of glitched a foot to the left. “Thanks.”

I sat down, parted my hair down the center and started to braid. Michael, apparently, found this fascinating. It was hasty and messy, but it was better than leaving my hair down to get tangled again.

I slipped under the covers and looked at my window to see the start of a sunrise. “Hey, do you have a white noise setting perchance? I get heavy traffic outside my window twice a day.”

“White noise,” it repeated, as if trying to remember something. “I don’t make noises on purpose, but I will try.” It sat still for a second before doing something that I could only describe as flicking through settings, changing colors and shapes before settling back to its preferred form accompanied by a gentle static that was less sharp than before.

“Beautiful,” I sang, flopping backwards onto my back. “Wow, I want to apologize for threatening to kill you.”

“Which occurrence?” It laughed. I grinned and gave it a kick from under the covers.

“Most of them,” I replied. “Not all of them, just most.” Michael put its hand over where its heart should be in a show of fake injury and dramatically fell off the bed onto the floor. When it didn’t immediately sit back up, I leaned over the side to see if it was still there. It was not.

“Wait, where’d you go you little fucker,” I laughed, taking a good look under the bed. “I don’t have time for this.” I was still chuckling when I pulled my sheets back up to my shoulders. “Do me a favor and let me sleep for at least twelve hours, yeah?”

It laughed in reply, which was much more comforting than it should have been.

.

He sleeps peacefully, and he still smells like Death.

I want to touch his face, wake him up, just to be sure he is okay. Is he dreaming? What does he dream about? Does he dream differently when I am near? Does he ever dream about me? Would he consider those dreams or nightmares?

I hear him breathing, hear his heartbeat, and know that he is still alive. How long will he be alive? How long will he smell like Death? When will he finally smell Dead?

I do not feel welcome to stay when he sleeps, so I exist as the door. Did I ever promise not to speed things along? If he woke up in my hallways, what would he do? Would he truly harm me or would he accept it? I think he would prefer it there, but the Book Burner, “Gerry”, was unpredictable. I used to like that. I enjoyed that. But I do not anymore.

If I asked him again, would he consider it? Does he truly want to die here or is he just being stubborn? Will he wake up so that I might find out?

Does he know that he is closer than ever before? Does he know that he had a mild stroke while he rested in the bath? I do not think he knows. I hid it from him. Would he want to know? Would he be angry or sad or apathetic if I told him? Should I continue to hide it from him?

Yes. He is peaceful. If he wakes up, I will not tell him.

He is shifting in his sleep. No, not shifting, seizing. How long will this one last? It lasts almost two minutes. I wonder if this is normal for him. He would not know, he stopped trying to know a very long time ago. I think for a minute that I should put something in his mouth, to prevent him from biting his tongue. No, I cannot guarantee that I will not cause more damage than what I am trying to prevent. My hands are sharper than his. I would rather him not be angry in his final hours.

He wakes up in a panic, ready to fight. I do not know how long he had been sleeping. He pulls a knife from somewhere, and watches his room for movement. He does not see my door. Why doesn’t he see my door? Should I exist for him? There is nothing here but me. What is he afraid of?

He slams open the bedroom door, holding his knife in front of him, and he leaves. I exist, but quietly, intrigued. He is on edge. Is he still dreaming? What does he think has come after him? Should I wake him? I am walking behind him when he glances back.

I am impressed with his reflexes. If I had a body to damage, he would have done quite well. His knife was in my form, and I know that he was aiming under the rib cage, but I have no rib cage. To his horror, I swallow the weapon into my form. He should not have weapons if he will not play nice.

I think he is awake now.

“The fuck,” he whispers. “The fuck did my knife go.”

“You will get it back when I give it to you, Gerry.”

He is confused. He sits on the floor of the kitchen where he stood. “Sorry, Michael,” he apologizes. “This is exactly why I don’t have a boyfriend.”

This implies that he does this often. I understand that being mortally wounded is not a desirable state of being for someones. I put his knife on top of the fridge, it is floppy like cooked pasta. Objects of Slaughter and End do not feel good in my hallways. For either of us.

“Would coffee help?” I ask. I do not know how to make coffee. What else does he drink other than water?

“Yeah,” he said, using the counter to help him stand back up. “You want some as well?” I do not like coffee. I tell him yes.

I watch him move about the kitchen, mumbling to himself. He has many tattoos that I can see. On every visible joint on his hands there is a crudely drawn eye. Did he do them himself? The same eye is on both elbows and the back of his neck. How many does he have? Are there more?

“How many eyes do you have, Gerry?” I like using his name. Does he also enjoy it when I use his name?

“Uh,” he pauses. “Forty five, I think. Or forty six.”

“Why?” I ask. The Ceaseless Watcher is no more his patron than the Hunt.

“Mary Keay,” he sighs. He sits on the kitchen counter while the coffee brews, swinging his legs. This memory hurts him. Why does this memory make him grimace like that? “I didn’t ask for them. I used to think of them as gifts before I realized they were a punishment.” He rubs the one on his elbow like it hurts him.

I want to remove them because they hurt him. These marks hurt him and remind him of things he does not want to remember. Can I take the eyes away? Will the Watcher allow me to butcher its marks?

.

The moment I mentioned punishment, Michael held its too-long hand out at me. It was looking at the eyes on my own hand with a sort of determined look on its face.

I made a move to put my hand in its own, before stopping. “Careful,” I warned. “If I lose any fingers over this, I will take an axe to your door.” This threat didn’t even faze it, and I hesitantly let my hand rest on Michael’s outstretched palm. “What are you doing?” I asked. It had been a very long time since I touched a person, but then again Michael wasn’t a person.

It didn’t answer my question. I looked over at the coffee pot in a desperate attempt to hide any emotion I might have. I felt what I assumed to be a finger press delicately against the eye on my index finger. The fuck is it even doing?

Its hands were warmer than I expected. I hadn’t thought a whole lot about it but I expected for it to be cold to the touch. It was nothing like touching a person, of course, but it wasn’t as unpleasant as I was dreading. The hands that looked too sharp to be hands weren’t very sharp at all, though I suspect that it dulled the tips and edges for me.

Overall, physical intimacy wasn’t something I was used to aside from a few one night stands. This wasn’t supposed to be intimate, and I knew that logically, but I couldn’t really help myself. That was more contact than I had had in a very long time.

I knew that Michael didn’t want to be seen as a person and I wondered, in that moment, whether that extended to behaviors. Is this intimate for him as well? Is intimacy only something for people to have?

“I… apologize.” Its echoey voice brought me out of my thoughts. I looked back at where our hands met and startled when I saw that I was missing an eye. It was replaced by a spiral. I pulled my hand back quickly to look. “I could not remove it. I tried.”

“Oh my god,” I said. “Holy crap. I didn’t even feel it.” I grinned at the thing standing in my kitchen. “Honestly, I think I prefer this over those cruddy eyes.”

Michael looked relieved, I think.

“Are you solid enough for me to give you a hug?” I surprised myself by saying this, to be honest. It must have surprised Michael as well, because its hair stood up like there wasn’t any gravity. Or maybe it forgot to pretend it was affected by gravity. After just a few seconds I heard it say no, followed by a clinking sound as it disappeared.

“Fuck,” I cursed. I could see the edge of a yellow doorway in my bedroom. At least it didn’t leave. I should not have asked. Of fucking course it didn’t want a hug, it barely liked having a body to begin with. I poured it a cup of coffee anyway and sat on the floor to drink my own.

I must have started to succumb to its air of madness. Michael was only there because I asked it to stay. It was sacrificing effort and comfort to exist near me to ease my passing and I had the gall to ask it for more. I told it to stay here and watch me die and do nothing about it and then I went and asked it to act like a person as well.

I looked down at my coffee. It was cold. “Damn it,” I murmured, glancing at the kitchen window. When I finished making coffee it was maybe almost noon, but looking outside told me it was sunset already. The mug I left on the counter was gone.

I moved to stand so I could wash out my mug but I couldn’t. My left arm and leg were dead, so I suppose that there is only so much Michael can do to convince me I feel fine.

“Michael,” I called. “Michael, I need help here, my friend.” When I sat down on the floor, I hadn’t anticipated not being able to get up.

.

“Michael, I need help here, my friend,” he says. I am surprised that he can talk. I exist in his kitchen to answer his call. I do not want to exist so close to him. He reeks of Death.

“Michael,” he gasps. He is hyperventilating. He is panicking. Why is he so surprised by this? Why had he been pretending to not be afraid? Why is he dropping the act now? His fear does not feed me.

“Gerry,” I start. “I want to help,” I tell him. I don’t know how to help. Does he want me to carry him? Would I be able exist enough to carry him? Would I be okay with carrying him? Will I hurt him?

He holds out his hand toward me and I see the ruined tattoo on his finger. My Mark, I suppose. Have I Marked him? I am deciding what to say, how to speak, when the doorbell rings. Both Gerry and I pause, and there is silence aside from the short and quick breaths falling from his mouth. The confusion on his face, streaking through the fear, tells me that he was not expecting.

The door unlocks and a person walks inside and closes the door behind them. Did they have a key? It was far too quick to pick the lock. The intruder locks the door but continues to face away.

“I didn’t Know you were here, Mr. Shelley.” Rage. Rage and anger and hatred are inside of me. I do not feel rage and anger and hatred for any someone but this one. The last someone I saw before I wasn’t one anymore. Though I shouldn’t call the Archivist a someone.

“Gertrude?” Gerry rasps. “Wait, Michael, calm down.” Could he see my anger? What did his eyes tell him he saw?

“He can’t hurt me,” the Archivist states plainly. She holds no fear for me and mine. I wish she did. I growl at the use of _‘he’_ and step between her and Gerry. “What are you doing here, Mr. Shelley?”

“I am not him, Archivist.” I am close to wavering out of existence. It is hard to concentrate on keeping a form when I am so angry. “Leave now.”

“It’s an empty threat and you know it.” How could a woman of her age hold so much malice in her voice? Her words are stronger than most people’s. “The moment I step through your door, your hallways will unravel around me and you won’t _be_ anymore.”

“Gertrude, Michael has been helpful to me these past few days.” Gerry’s voice sounds strained and muffled but I choose not to look at him. I keep an eye on she who would threaten him.

“I cannot hurt you, no,” I tell her. I open a door under my feet and Gerry’s, though I hold it closed. I see something flash in the Archivist’s eyes at the realization. Did she always get what she wanted whenever she asked for it?

Gerry is telling me something but the walls are flashing colors around us and the Archivist stares me down.

“What is it you plan for Gerry?” I ask. This makes me smile. Usually she is the one asking questions.

“Immortality, if you must know,” she sighs, as if such a thing were common.

“The Coroner already holds him, Archivist, and I know a lie when I see one. Lies are my forte, not yours.”

“Not even Mr. Banks has absolute power.”

“Are you going to tell me you do?”

“No one does, but it’s possible to get close.”

“But then you waited until his last hours to show up.” She does not reply. In the silence, I am suddenly aware that there is silence at all. I immediately look back at Gerry. He is not breathing. I feel relief. And sadness. Will I grieve for him? Am I capable of doing that? “The Inevitable already has him, Archivist.”

“Yes,” she confirms. “But I can take him back.”

“Lower your voice,” I whisper. I make ‘white noise’ for him. “He is resting.”

“He doesn’t have to-”

“He is resting!” I scream. He does not smell like Death. He is a something now. I look back at the Archivist and see her wiping something red from her nose. There is red in her ears too. She looks good in red. My fingers are sharp and I am ready to make more red.

She staggers a little and reaches into her shoulder bag. A book, a book that smells entirely wrong. A book should not smell like that, nothing should. There are souls in that book. I smell pain and despair and Dead. The Archivist did have a plan for him after all.

Her voice slurs lightly when she speaks. “I can bring him back.” What is stopping her? What does she need to fulfill her plan? I look back at Gerry. His eyes are open and his body is warm, but his heart does not beat. I find that I wish I had taken all of his Eyes when I still had the chance.

I realize that what stops her from bringing him back is me. She needs his body, but she can’t take it from me. Do I want him back? What is the price for immortality? What is the catch, the consequence? Would he want to be held here by that book? Am I willing to risk it?

No. I am not.

I open the door, and we are gone. The Archivist is left behind.

.

Gerry has a room in my hallways. His soul is gone, but beyond reality his body will not rot. So I made a pocket in the labyrinth to keep him in. I put him to bed and tucked him in, sealing the door so that no one could disturb him.

I do not know why I keep him. I assume that Michael Shelley left me sentimentalism among the scattered pieces I have left of him.

I asked Oliver Banks if Gerry was received successfully, as I was worried that The Archivist had put safeguards in place. She had not. Oliver Banks confirmed as much when he blatantly refused, again, to bargain for it. I did not want it, though.

Gerry did end up in my hallways, however, regardless of the threats he made to me. I was the last thing he saw, but he did not die with malice in his eyes. I wonder, sometimes, what it felt like. To pass away, reaching for a friend who wasn’t even looking. I did not hear his last words, though I doubt it was anything special. I do not think he knew they were his last.

I regret not watching for his final breath. Regret is new. I did not have Regret before Gerard Keay.

But with him safe in his own pocket of unreality, I was free to continue on in the fashion I had before him. I targeted and stalked and prepared individuals in a game of madness and joy and carefree emotions that I found new depth in. Understanding the confusion and grief in my prey added new flavor to their fear, and I find that I am better off with having known the Book Burner than I was before him.

I only hope that whatever I become after I am done being Michael will understand why I kept him. I hope it will continue to keep him like I have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings include: strong language, descriptions of symptoms relating to brain cancer, really confusing and nonsensical bits of narration from Michael, night terrors, panic attacks, suicidal ideation, depression, mention of Mary Keay and her subsequent domestic abuse toward Gerry, brief but vague description of a dead body


End file.
